Better Farming Wiki
Better Farming Wiki is a collaborative project trying to use gold farming for development - to give goldfarmers the tools to farm on their own terms, and players an option to buy gold that is more autonomous and fair. This part of the project is like Wikipedia - anyone can contribute by clicking 'Edit' above on any page. Quests *Build 5 free gold farming studios worldwide where hardware and bandwidth is given as public infrastructure, so gold farmers can work freely and autonomously in better conditions. *Build a fair trade goldfarming web portal where gamers can connect directly with these autonomous farmers to purchase more ethical virtual work. *A user-generated MMO *The internet on Mars and the Moon Background How do people work in virtual worlds? *It is estimated that around 500 000 people work in online games like World of Warcraft *Mostly they collect in-game currency (known as gold farming) or build high-level characters/avatars (known as power leveling) which are then sold (more information here and here) *The global market for this industry was valued at over $3bn annually (study from within the World Bank) *There are news stories on Gold farming at the NY Times, the BBC, and the Economist. What’s the problem? *In order to sell at the cheapest price, businesses typically employ poor people, almost always in developing countries. Goldfarmers by population are Chinese, Vietnamese, Mexican, American, Russian, Thai, Indonesian, and also some are in India, the Phillipines and Romania. *Most of these people are required to work long hours, often in poor conditions, and a superior takes a cut of their earnings each week (see the Guardian NPR and the NY Times). What’s the opportunity? ''' *Among others, the development potential of gold farming has been discussed by The World Bank, author Cory Doctorow, and Richard Heeks. *One reason is that these microtransactions are small enough to flow easily from wealthy players, and large enough to make a difference to the farmers doing it. *The work is also physically more sustainable than labouring or other kinds of industrial manufacuring. *Because the game interface is largely visual, people of wide linguistic and educational backgrounds can participate. *It is a form of work that connects people in different parts of the world and this allows workers and players to cooperate and discuss their different preferences and ideas. '''What’s the solution? *Give both gold farmers and gold buyers better options. *One part of this project will use a model developed by the ethical outsourcing company Samasource: :: 1. Help build a centre for the workers where they all lead themselves: :: A place where the computers and bandwidth have been donated, and aren’t expected to return on the investment. This would allow farmers to not have someone take a cut of their wage. Because they can now earn more, they might be able to work more freely, according to their needs. For this part of the mission we're going to raise a few thousand dollars on kickstarter. :: 2. Build a portal that connects these farmers directly to buyers: :: This will be a website where farmers can sell their goods and services directly to buyers without commission – they can charge their own price and keep it all. For buyers, this will be a place to purchase gold and services that is humane and non-exploitative, and perhaps even cheaper (no intermediaries). *Samasource wants to ”bring dignified, computer-based work to women, youth, and refugees living in poverty” and we want the same. Or as Cory Doctorow writes, to help foster "a world where we are paid a living wage, and where we labor under livable conditions, and where our workplaces are fair and decent." And also creative and free. Who benefits from this project? *Users get to buy cheap virtual goods and services that they know are humane and not exploitative. *Farmers get to keep all their earnings, better work conditions, and more freedom to determine their own work hours. {C}Who loses? *Other gold farming operations. Maybe this needs to be a project where we build a 'free studio' or gold farming centre in more than one place simultaneously: China, Vietnam, India, Mexico, Phillipines, Romania - and do it all together. Form this ethical union and that connects online, enabled by the crowd-funded studios. *MMO operaters like Blizzard? They are generally against gold farming. But could this help them? *Gamers who are against gold farming. Perhaps these new gold farmers could agree to some rules, given by the players. No spamming, no hacking. These could be the basis of membership in the ethical farmers guild. There would still be blackhats who don't obey. We can allow reporting and exile. While exile offers freedom from the rules, there are distinct benefits to participating. More about the project and wiki What kind of management and structure will this project have? *As open as possible - both who can help and who can benefit *We’d like as many people as possible to help, and to share in the rewards of their contribution. *We’re going to look at some kind of model where contributions can be rewarded with a stake in the benefits - gold, advertising revenue. How is the project going to fund itself? *For the centre, we will need some external funding. We will launch a kickstarter campaign later this year. *For the website, we’re looking at various funding models. One would be to partner with other companies and run advertisements. Another would be to offer a kind of freemium service. At the moment we have a government grant of a few thousand dollars to support the inital stages. Where do you see this going? We hope this is the first step to: *helping anyone anywhere on the planet to earn an income in online communities if they want *increasing the freedom and choices available to virtual workers. *creaing a user-generated metaverse How can I get involved? *Click 'Edit' and add your thoughts. *Email betterfarmingproject@gmail.com. Currenly only Jesse is monitoring this inbox. *Contact us on Twitter Latest activity Category:Browse